Grants We Funded
Grant applicants for the 2023 cycle requested a total of nearly $4 million dollars. The PSF Study Section Subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated nearly 140 grant applications on the following topics:
The PSF awarded research grants totaling over $1 million dollars to support nearly 30 plastic surgery research proposals.
ASPS/PSF leadership is committed to continuing to provide high levels of investigator-initiated research support to ensure that plastic surgeons have the needed research resources to be pioneers and innovators in advancing the practice of medicine.
Research Abstracts
Search The PSF database to have easy access to full-text grant abstracts from past PSF-funded research projects 2003 to present. All abstracts are the work of the Principal Investigators and were retrieved from their PSF grant applications. Several different filters may be applied to locate abstracts specific to a particular focus area or PSF funding mechanism.
Non-Viral Gene Therapy for Enhanced Adipose Implants
Samuel Bartholomew MD
2004
Oregon Health and Science University
Basic Research Grant
Other
Adipose tissue engineering is the three-dimensional growth of adipose tissue by a process involving cells, growth factors, and bioresorbable scaffolds. In one method, cells are seeded into a scaffold material and exposed to growth factors. After an incubation period, the scaffold is then implanted to fill a soft tissue defect. The field of tissue engineering has been exploring the development of adipose derived stem cells (ADSCs) to meet the need for adipose tissue augmentation in soft tissue reconstruction. ADSCs are a promising new source of stem cells that may be easily harvested with suction-assisted lipectomy. Gene therapy of ADSCs may become an important tool in sustained expression of desired growth factors in adipose tissue-engineered constructs. Insulin growth factor-1 (lGF-1) is a potent stimulator of adipocyte growth and differentiation that has been used to augment adipose tissue in animal models. IGF-1 gene therapy of ADSCs may provide increased durability to adipose tissue engineered implants. To date, only viral methods of gene therapy have been investigated in ADSCs and are the preferred method. However, the limitations to viral gene therapy include immunogenicity, possible genetic mutation, and social stigma. There are several methods of safe and effective ex vivo non-viral gene therapy. The best known of which is the use of liposomes. The long term objective of this proposal is to evaluate non-viral gene uptake and expression in ADSCs for use in adipose tissue engineering therapies.